Daily Tech Snippet: Thursday, July 9

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• Microsoft hangs up on Nokia business, to cut 7,800 jobs in a retreat from its failing smartphone business: Microsoft said on Wednesday it would cut 7,800 jobs, or nearly 7 percent of its workforce, and write down about $7.6 billion related to its Nokia phone business. Most of the job cuts will be in the phone hardware business, underscoring the company's shift in focus to software and cloud from hardware. About a third of the layoffs will be in Finland, where Microsoft will shut down a product development unit, according to Finland's national broadcaster YLE. This is the second round of job cuts since Satya Nadella took over as chief executive in February 2014. Microsoft said last July it would slash up to 18,000 jobs. RBC Capital Markets analyst Ross MacMillan said he estimates the latest layoffs to reduce operating expenses by more than $1 billion on an annualized basis. Microsoft, which wrote down more than $7 billion of goodwill related to its purchase of the majority of Nokia’s hardware business. The charge was not a surprise. The scale of the dismissal was; the total sum deleted is larger than the originally reported purchase price of the assets in question. So, to be clear, Microsoft’s earnings on a normal accounting (GAAP) basis are hosed in the current quarter. The write-down underscores the fact that nobody other than Apple makes money in hardware. Even so, Microsoft's shares rose as much as 1.4 percent and have risen about 22 percent since Nadella took over in February last year.


• Meanwhile, Apple plans record initial production of new iPhones : Apple is preparing for the largest initial production run for its next iPhones by the end of the year, the Wall Street journal reported. The company is asking suppliers to manufacture 85 million to 90 million units of two new models with 4.7-inch and 5-inch displays. The company had ordered 70 million to 80 million of iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus last year, in its largest initial production run so far. The new phones are also expected to feature Force Touch technology which can distinguish between a light tap and deep press, people familiar with the matter told the Journal. The screen sizes are the same as in the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. Apple is also expected to maintain the screen resolution.


• Didi Kuaidi, the Chinese Ride-Hailing Service, Raises $2 Billion: As companies listed in China continue to suffer fallout from the stock market collapse, the Chinese ride-sharing app Didi Kuaidi on Wednesday showed why it is good to be private. The company, whose smartphone services connect users to taxis and private drivers, said in a statement that it had raised $2 billion in a new round of fund-raising, and might raise still more. Didi Kuaidi set out to raise $1.5 billion on June 22, according to its president, Jean Liu. Within five days, the goal had been met, and now the company has closed on at least $2 billion. ‘‘All of our investors are super-long-term investors, and they won’t get affected by short-term hiccup’’ in the stock market, Ms. Liu said. ‘‘They see another Alibaba coming.’’ Didi Kuaidi was born in competition as the amalgam of two companies, Didi Dache and Kuaidi Dache, that spent heavily and competed ruthlessly for market share in 2013 and 2014 before joining forces. After the fund-raising round, Didi Kuaidi has cash reserves of $3.5 billion, which it said it would spend on building new services, financing research in data analytics and improving customer experiences.


• Meerkat Makes Friends With Facebook’s API, moves on from Twitter: Live streaming app Meerkat rolled out several major updates this morning, including the ability to sign up on the platform through Facebook instead of Twitter, a feature that lets you invite those watching your stream to take over that stream, and it now facilitates saving streams in something called the Meerkat Library instead of on your phone. Meerkat was on a roll shortly after launching earlier this year, thanks largely due to Twitter’s social graph. Meerkat would tweet out that users were live on the platform every time they started a stream. More people started streaming, more tweets went out. But then came Periscope, Twitter’s rival platform. Twitter then blocked Meerkat from its social graph and that was the end of that romance. It looks like Meerkat has moved on from its breakup and is now in the friendly arms of Facebook. Even with the bad blood betwixt them, folks still had to have a Twitter account to sign up on the app. Now they just need Facebook.


• Capital One’s String of Mobile Acquisitions Turns Into a Monsoon: It was somewhat surprising last year when Web design firm Adaptive Path was acquired by banking company Capital One. But the bank hasn’t stopped there. On Wednesday it is announcing it has also scooped up Monsoon, a 40-person mobile development shop based in Oakland, California. Capital One won’t say how much it is paying for Monsoon, but said it is in line with other acquisitions of similarly sized firms. As for why it is buying Monsoon, Managing Vice President Skip Potter said the company has a lot of ideas on how to revolutionize banking with mobile apps but needs more workers than it could simply hire on its own. Capital One, best known for its credit card business, has been trying to attract a new generation of banking customers who prefer powerful apps over physical branches. It has opened a handful of cafes in big cities such as San Francisco, but even there the focus is on helping customers get familiar with the brand as opposed to handling individual transactions.